Blueprints for Living Ministries, Inc.

09/03/2026

One of the most important things I learned in prison was to have no mercy with sin.

Sin rarely begins by showing you where it intends to take you. It begins with something you tolerate, excuse, justify, or convince yourself you can control. Jesus said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away” (Matthew 5:29).

The point is radical: deal radically with sin.

Sometimes that means cutting off habits. Sometimes places. Sometimes relationships that continually pull you toward darkness. “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals’” (1 Corinthians 15:33).

Since leaving prison on April 1, 2016, I’ve tried to live by a simple conviction: Love people. Forgive people. Pray for people. Show mercy to people.

But never make peace with sin.

I spent too many years learning what happens when sin is tolerated. I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life making peace with what Christ died to save me from.

07/30/2026

Last night I found myself asking a question: Why is it so easy to fear, worry, and stress but so difficult to hope?

Yesterday I received a call from a potential customer who wants a quote to repair a door at her home. It's not a huge commercial project. It's just a door. Yet I found myself excited because every opportunity is another step forward in building Fortress.

Then I caught myself wondering how easily we can dismiss small beginnings.

Why do our minds naturally drift toward what could go wrong instead of what could go right? Why is pessimism almost automatic while hope requires intention?

I've come to believe that fear is our natural response to uncertainty, but hope is a choice rooted in faith. Fear focuses on what we can lose. Hope looks for what God may be building, even when the progress seems small.

Throughout Scripture, God repeatedly used small things to accomplish great purposes: a shepherd's sling, a widow's jar of oil, a mustard seed, five loaves and two fish.

Maybe that little door repair won't amount to much. Or maybe it's the beginning of relationships, referrals, and opportunities I can't yet see.

I've learned not to despise small beginnings. Sometimes what looks insignificant is exactly where God chooses to begin. Faith doesn't deny reality. It simply refuses to let fear write the ending.

So today, I'm choosing hope over worry, faith over fear, and expectancy over pessimism.

05/22/2026

Be your child's hope not their fear.

04/24/2026

Got help?

04/16/2026

It is hard to look down on someone when you have been down there too.

Every now and then I scroll past a video of someone crying. Not staged. Not polished. Just a person breaking in real time. And instead of thinking, “That’s what you get,” or “Maybe now you’ll turn your life around,” my mind goes somewhere else.

I remember.

I remember what it feels like to sit under the weight of your own decisions. The shame. The guilt. The fear. The isolation. That quiet kind of desperation where you know you put yourself there, and you don’t know how to get out.

When you’ve been there, you don’t speak so quickly. You don’t mock so easily. You don’t stand over broken people with cheap words and easy answers.

That doesn’t make sin small. It doesn’t remove consequences. But it does something important. It humbles you.

Because if you’re standing today, you know the truth. You didn’t pull yourself out by your own strength. You were helped. You were shown mercy. You were given grace.

And that changes how you look at people who are still in the pit.

Some people talk down because they’ve never really faced themselves. But those who have been low, really low, tend to speak differently. There’s weight behind their words. There’s restraint and understanding.

Not softness toward wrong, but sobriety about what it means to be human.

So before you judge someone in their lowest moment, remember your own. And if you’ve made it out, say it honestly:

By the grace of God.

04/12/2026

04/08/2026

New series coming, titled:

"How Wicked Acts Become Protected by Law"